


jump in and drown

by keithsforeheadtattoo



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 21:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20663879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/keithsforeheadtattoo
Summary: Eddie waits until the dead of night to fish out the crinkled Valentine’s card from inside the lining of his pillow and spends a final moment with its age-yellowed paper lace. At first he plans to just get rid of it down the toilet but then the feeling hits him all over again, he’s a grown man now and still doesn’t, shouldn’t, can’t know where things go when you flush them.a few short vignettes about these two Losers through the decades





	jump in and drown

**Author's Note:**

> this is patently about the book's timeline of these babes, like, who grew up in the 50s and are adults in the 80s

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“I’m gonna marry you,” Richie promises when they’re still kids but already, distinctly, too old for that shit. Eddie can’t remember ever being young enough to talk like that without getting his ass kicked. 

He scoffs like someone farted, pours a fistful of gravel and dust from the ground into Richie’s pants pocket. “Shut up.”

Richie skips rocks unsuccessfully in angry silence for the better part of half an hour.

“Y’know, I wasn’t kidding, Kaspbrak, you nerd!” he shouts across the water and distance when Eddie gets too worried about the sun setting and starts walking home. 

“...I’m really going to!” Richie points his index finger, looks at him like Uncle Sam.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Hey, Mister Two Left Feet, are you gonna ask me?” 

Eddie lolls his head around with sarcastic labor to turn and see who he already knows it is. 

Richie’s suit is bright orange, actively battling his hair. He rented it because the guy working in the store told him not to. 

Eddie shifts in a metal folding chair and says “Ask you what, Trashmouth?” 

The room is packed with so many couples the chaperones can hardly ensure standing room for Jesus. The band is covering Sam Cooke and Eddie wouldn’t know what to do with a song that demands the twist.

“Jeez, tough guy, have it your way,” Richie throws his hands up in defeat, only for a second. “…but I’m comin’ back over here the next time they play a slow number! And if you’re not snapped up by then, I’m stealing you!”

Eddie sits in the same spot for twenty more minutes trying to convince the hammer of his pulse that Richie was just joking. He’s usually just joking.

The band starts up You Beat Me To The Punch and there’s an orange figure cutting and weaving through a sea of dark suits like a firefly. 

“Hiya,” Richie pants, all sweaty. Probably from twisting. “Say, you think this one counts as slow enough?”

It’s dark enough, and everyone else looks so busy with themselves. The room is mercifully shaded in a jungle of streamers; mercifully free of balloons. 

Eddie lets himself take Richie’s sweaty hand. He’s usually just joking, so even if anyone sees they’d probably be safe. They might even get away with the length of a whole song.

“What IS that tie?” Eddie grimaces appraisingly at the pattern.

Richie winds his arms around his waist and holds him, not like a girl, like a life raft. There’s no room between them for Jesus or air.

“They were supposed to be roses, I guess, but I bought it ‘cuz I thought they looked like meatballs.” 

Richie grins so loudly that Eddie has to tell him to shut up. 

Eddie fixes Richie’s glasses on his face for him, pushes them up the bridge of his nose with a single finger, forgets about anyone else’s eyes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Aw, c’mon, it’s closing night of a fuckin’ college production.” Richie impulsively plays with the cord of the payphone. “I die in the first half anyway! Who could possibly notice I’m gone?”

The punch of Eddie’s breathy laugh pumps static through the receiver. “The other actors!!”

“Eh, screw ‘em. Davidson hates all my ad-libs and Travis keeps swiping my coat hangers. They can all go to hell.” 

Richie pointedly ignores the stares of several people, some in the increasingly pissed-off queue forming to use the phone booth, some passersby understandably gawking at him in full costume right down to the codpiece.

“Listen, I don’t know when you’re gonna be in town again,” he ekes out with an urgency he pretends is from the line of people.

Eddie sighs and finally asks, “Are you sure it’s okay?”

Richie screws his mouth up tightly. Eddie asked him the same thing, verbatim, right after the first time they kissed. They were just kids and Richie thought he meant _is it okay to be out in the quarry so late_ until he realized he had meant it all, the whole thing. 

“I’m positive it’s not! You want takeout?” Richie blares.

“Aren’t you gonna get in trouble?” Eddie’s smiling hard enough his voice shows it. Clearly asking only out of routine at this point.

“I mean, if my stage manager ever finds me again after this, she’s gonna have my balls. Buuuuut they’re yours tonight instead if you’ll go halvsies with me on Italian food…”

Eddie laughs out a long, trailing “stop” that’s pitched with obvious delight.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mother discovers where he’s squirreled away the box full of letters and postcards, so that becomes the end of that practice. Both the hiding them and the sending them back and forth in the first place. 

Eddie waits until the dead of night to fish out the crinkled Valentine’s card from inside the lining of his pillow and spends a final moment with its age-yellowed paper lace. At first he plans to just get rid of it down the toilet but then the feeling hits him all over again, he’s a grown man now and still doesn’t, shouldn’t, can’t know where things go when you flush them. 

He blots dark ink across the whole thing until he can’t see a word left of Richie’s handwriting, cuts away all the edges so it’s no longer the shape of a heart, crumples the damp blackened square.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, doesn’t matter that they’re in an airport now. Richie spots a familiar form at the opposite gate and won’t even give his heart the chance to skip a beat. 

He immediately yells out, “SPAGHETTI!” and of course everyone in a close radius whips around to see what in the hell. But the only part Richie gives a rat’s ass about is the chair furthest in the left corner, the man with his legs crossed at the ankle and a churning bundle of nervously working hands. 

Richie’s positive it’s him. It’s the searing first week of June and the guy’s in a three-piece suit. Dark green. Richie’s swallowing it all with his eyes like he’s ready to jump in and drown. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie’s startled into nearly a whisper. 

Richie absolutely can’t wait anymore. He moves in before Eddie has time to stand up and crushes him against his chest. 

In the precious twenty minutes before Richie has to board, they set up next to a pretzel stand and attempt quick summaries of their adult lives. Eddie says his job these days is as a limo driver, mostly clients in the entertainment business. Richie says if his own next audition goes right then he might be the type of big-shot asshole who could ride in the back.

They don’t talk about Derry. They don’t ask about women. They split a big paper carton of fries and Richie keeps wiping the grease on his pants. Everything’s over too fast, the intercom’s blaring too soon.

“Hey - uh - will you please call me?” Richie’s voice is atypically hushed, burying itself purposely between the layers of beeping and footsteps. “Sometime?”

He jogs to swipe the nearest desk attendant’s pen; scrawls his current number across the skin of Eddie’s wrist, up under his shirtsleeve. They both pretend they aren’t tearing up. They both pretend they’re going to keep in touch all regular.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The nightmares come back like fruiting branches, seasonal and ripening and weighted. Richie has the weird recurring dream where he cuts off all his own fingers and they each turn into those foamy circus peanut candies. He dreams of being at the bottom of a lake with a cement block and a Kick Me sign attached. He dreams of being on the moon unwillingly, just looking out to the sudden and lonely sight of Earth far away. 

He dreams of Eddie, always shaded in a half-light and metaphysically beckoning him somewhere. Those ones never make him feel afraid until he wakes up.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

He gets just the initials done, EK, in a calligraphic hand like the title card off I Love Lucy. Wedged between the heart with his grandmother’s name inside and a regrettable portrait of Foghorn Leghorn he got inked into him impulsively the hour he turned eighteen. 

The letters are high up enough on his back that he figures, unless and until he’s sunk to pornos, there’s no cameras who’ll catch sight of it.

Eddie traces the outline with his finger, “Look at you, Miss Janis Joplin.”

Rich surprised him with it the way breeders might have done flowers or something, except they're in some silverfish motel. Rich keeps the receipt every time they go out to restaurants together just so he can make sure to shred it himself. Eddie’s allergic to most flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> this entire piece is a testament to my own procrastination bc i was like "i will totally write and publish this idea i have for some eddie/richie shit before the new movie comes out" and i was fuckin talking about the movie in 2017 hahahhahaaaaaaaa 
> 
> anyway it's 2019 now, i'm finally getting around to seeing "it chapter two" tomorrow morning, i finally stitched together all this crap from my old phone and added some other parts and i better publish this now before i watch it and my mental images change!!! (not in a bad way!!! ive loved the casting and muschietti's choices at large!!!!)
> 
> TL:DR; wouldja believe this whole fic was originally inspired by [someone's 1980s-style remix of "closer" by the chainsmokers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTtoe9Bh-gI&list=PLbDQJMP931rpdhAI8m1v1u4NVfCf5jPp_&index=6&t=0s) 💀💀
> 
> and while i'm at it here's some more Extremely Related Listening:  
["twistin the night away"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSoPeZMHMf4) \- sam cooke  
["you beat me to the punch"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUXSdg6PCc) \- mary wells


End file.
